January 23
Matthew 23: Loving the Ride to Hell at the Cool Kids' Table
Genesis 24; Matthew 23; Nehemiah 13; Acts 23
Jesus denounces the religious leaders of his day with both sober balance and salty fierceness.
He is balanced when he commands that the people do what the leaders tell them to do, even though much of it is legalistic and worthless. Why? Because “they sit on Moses’ seat” - they are the spiritual leaders over God’s household. God’s hierarchy must be respected.
However, they must not do what they do, for several reasons.
First, because they were grade-A, first-class, major league hypocrites. They commanded many things but did not do them (3-4).
Secondly, they do what they do to be seen by others (5-12). This lifestyle gives them the respect and golf-clap applause of men, but it is in truth profoundly atheistic. For the one you live for the approval for is your g/God. This is one of the main points of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in chapters 5-7 (for instance, see Matthew 6:16-18).
The inverse negative is this: if you live for the applause of men, it will be gone faster than the morning mist, and that’s all the reward you will get. Authentic faith shows itself in the reward one lives for.
Third, Jesus pronounces woe upon them because, as they engage in all their worthless activity, that activity keeps others from heaven too. The blood of others is on their hands (13-15). They do this by doing what the dragon did in the Garden: by inverting God’s values and categories of what is valuable (16-22). Thus they perform what looks religious on the outside, but they neglect what God thinks is most important (see James 1:26-27). So while they might look full of life on the outside, they are like white-washed tombs - dead on the inside (27-35).
They say that they would not have killed the prophets Jesus sent before (30), but the keyword there is “father” and “sons.” They are by their own words the sons of their fathers, who were themselves the sons not of Abraham, but of a liar and a destroyer.
Woe to our modern versions of these hypocrites. Woe to the so-called shepherds who run on the hamster wheel of man’s applause in order to keep the crowd, but who leave people dead in their sins. Woe to those who love to be accepted at the cool kids’ table but care nothing for justice and mercy. Woe to leaders who cater to those who say “We would never have done that. We are on the right side of history!”
Give us men who know they need grace, and that grace always transforms us, inside and out.